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For a recent commission I was asked to make a guest book, using the wedding invitation as inspiration. The invitations were quirky, giving me plenty to work with. The invitations – wrapped with a cream ribbon with a bunting pattern – had a lovely vintage feel, using letterpress-style type with an image of an old bicycle saying ‘We do’.

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I decided to use the patterned ribbon on the cover of the book as it really captures the playful nature of the invitation. I repeated the pattern of the bunting on the inside page, using brown paper cutouts. This introduced an element where the hand of the artist could be seen.

This couple were getting married in an Italian village called Pigna – which translates as pine. As a result, they decided to theme their invites around the symbol of a pine cone. They used an orange-brown colour for the text and the pine cone motif was dotted throughout.

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I originally tried blind embossing the pages with a pine shape but it was a little too subtle and unclear what it actually was. Instead I drew a pine cone on the inner page, mimicking the one found on the invitation. The autumnal colours of the guestbook worked well with this motif.

This guestbook is bound using a Secret Belgian binding – one of my favourite styles. The cover is bound together first and then the text block is sewn to the cover. This is quite different from the regular method of binding.

The paper inside the book is an Italian paper – Fabriano Tiepolo. This is a beautiful, heavyweight, velvety paper which gives the guestbook a luxurious feel.

Here is a wedding set that I made recently. It consists of a medium accordion album, an extra large Japanese bound album and a Secret Belgian bound guest book. The colour theme of the wedding was pink and slate grey so I thought that this modern polka-dotted paper contrasted with the grey bookcloth would suit.

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I also found a polka-dotted grey ribbon that I couldn’t resist using on one of the albums – making a very polka-polka dotted album!

Here is a wedding guestbook I made recently for a client in England. She was looking for a unique customised guest book that had a classic feel but wanted to avoid the usual white guest book. After looking through my cover papers, she chose the Inky Blue Flowers paper which has a rich and slightly antique quality.

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This guest book is a traditional case bound book. As the colour scheme for their wedding was pale blue with silver and plum accents, I chose complementary end papers and book cloth to suit these colours and the cover paper.

This Polaroid guest book is a novel twist on the regular wedding guest book: it is a mix of a guest book and photo album, where a photo of each guest or couple is taken and pasted in, then the guest writes a personal message beside it. It is a beautiful memento to have of one’s wedding day, serving as a visual record of all the guests as well as capturing all their good wishes!

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The bridesmaids’ dresses were a mixture of dusty pink and charcoal grey so I matched the cover with this using a variety of greys and pinks. The binding is a plain Japanese Stab stitch using two different ribbons to had depth to the bind. I also added bookcloth corners to the album so that the corners would be protected from wear and tear.

The spine of the album guest book had to be made quite wide to accommodate the thick Polaroid photos. To do this, I cut double the amount of paper spacers than a regular album and added them to the spine. If I not done this, the album wouldn’t close correctly and would look jam packed.

Each of the pages is scored several times with a bonefolder in order to make the pages turn over easily. This is important to do in a photo album as the paper is quite heavy – 300gsm – and would possibly crease in the wrong places otherwise.

I was asked to make this wedding set (guest book and 2 albums) for a couple who like a minimalistic style. When I heard that their wedding colours were black and white, I instantly thought of using this paper.

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The guest book is a Secret Belgian binding – my new favourite! I thought that this style would really compliment the paper pattern. I have included some photos of this book in progress, to give you an idea of how it is made.

The large album is a Japanese Stab stitch album. It also has an inscription on the front page ‘I am convinced that to live is to travel to the world’s end’. This quote was chosen because the couple meet while working in a bar called ‘World’s End’. The smaller album is a traditional case bound book. I used the black book cloth in a way that mimics the paper pattern. Each of the albums have black paper inside, making a nice contrast with the coverpaper.